Quiet Things
by EmilieRevan
Summary: The night may have began with a nightmare, but it certainly ended with a dream.


Title: Quiet Things  
Rating: G  
Pairing: Charlie/Claire  
Summary: The night began with a nightmare but it ended with a dream.  
Author's Notes/Disclaimer: This is the first of a Trilogy. Or more...

"Charlie…?"

The soft whisper ended the profuse stillness, sending a gentle, warm ripple through the allayed space and into Charlie's ears, immediately waking him from his deep sleep.

Blinking once, twice, three times, he finally managed to get adjusted to the darkness. The fire was almost out, only the remaining ambers at the bottom of the pit providing light for him to see Claire, who slept less than two or three feet from his own bedding, gazing at him with her big, blue eyes.

When he yawned in reaction to being woken up in the middle of the night, he could make out the corners of Claire's mouth curling up into a small grin. She always teased him about looking adorable when he yawned, his mouth agape and nose scrunched up.

"Is something wrong?" Charlie asked a tinge of alarm in his voice when he realized that there was urgency in Claire's own voice when waking him up. Immediately, he looked her up and down for any signs of injury, then to her belly to make sure nothing was terribly wrong.

Nothing was noticeably different, confusing him.

Claire shook her head in a small motion, one he could barely make out as he sat up, grunting and groaning in the process. She remained on her side even as he tried to get in a comfortable sitting position. "Nothing dangerously wrong, if that's what you're worrying about."

"Then what?" Charlie screwed his eyes shut, rubbing them. When he blinked them open again a few stars twinkled in his sight. Finally, he could see everything. The hard stones, the dirty ground and the half a dozen sleeping figures surrounding them.

It wasn't that he didn't mind speaking with Claire. In fact, he particularly enjoyed their talks.

She made him laugh and so did he. The smile on her face brought a warm feeling to his heart and caused butterflies to move about frantically in his stomach. A strange feeling at first, he grew fond of it and soon started to seek it out everyday. Like a ritual. Their own daily ritual.

But waking him up in the middle of the night with a tone that was the exact opposite of comforting wasn't something he was fond of.

"You don't remember?" she asked him, her eyes narrowing. There was no way he could possibly not remember what he'd just been doing, just been saying.

"Remember what?"

"You were…" she struggled to explain why she was weirded out. "You were calling out someone's name."

Charlie sat up a little straighter at that revelation, his eyes widening. "A name? What name?"

"You sounded so sad and-"

Trying to keep his cool, Charlie reiterated his question in a firm tone. "What name?"

"Liam…" she whispered the name yet it sounded so remarkably deafening in Charlie's ears.

Taking it in, Charlie breathed in sharply and held his breath. He shook his head and buried his face in his hands, laughing a little.

Claire, struggling to sit up and be level with Charlie, asked in a quiet voice: "Who's Liam?"

"Liam is…" Charlie looked up at her for a quick second before he forced himself to look away, his eyes shining slightly as the image of his brother floated to the front of his mind. "Someone I didn't say goodbye to on good terms."

"Was he family?"

"I guess you could say he was," Charlie cleared his throat, glimpsing at Claire another time as he ran a hand over his face. "If you use the term family loosely."

Claire didn't say anything at first in response to his answer; the only visible movement was her mouth closing as she swallowed hard, so loud Charlie could hear her gulp. "So…"

"It's water over the dam or under the bridge, wherever you like it. No need to exhaust ourselves over someone I won't ever see again," Charlie stopped her before she could start, knowing exactly where the topic was headed. But when he noticed Claire's slight disappointment at what he said, he shrugged and managed to sound a little more convincing. "I don't mean we'll be on this island forever. What I meant was-"

"Even if we were to be rescued it'd be unlikely for the two of you to ever speak to each other?" Claire finished for him, offering a comforting smile. "I know the situation well."

Charlie smiled back at her, his a little more strained as he leaned against the rock he always slept next to, knowing it would provide him at least some protection from whatever was in the forest. Claire sat across from him and he had the sudden urge to offer her the seat next to him, but he couldn't find the strength to form the words.

"Relationships, whatever kind, are complicated, something I figured out a little too late," Claire laughed, bitterness creeping into her tone as she rubbed her belly absently.

The arch of her back made Charlie wonder if she had bad posture, but then he remembered that being pregnant put great strain on her lower back and she probably was in great pain having been sleeping on the flat, hard ground for the past week. Pushing himself away from the rock, Charlie held his hand to her. "You need something to lean against."

She took it without hesitation, accepting his aid even if since he'd known her she'd always been the kind of stubborn woman who'd shy away from asking for help. He admired her strength but knew sometimes she needed help a little more than others.

Once she leaned against the rock, groaning in relief, he looked at her for approval as his hand moved to her lower back. She looked back at him with a small, appreciative smile, so he continued and moved his hand in small circles, massaging her back to provide some relief.

"So, your track record in relationships is bad as mine? Didn't think it was possible," Charlie broke eye contact and decided to look at the ground, focusing on a broken leaf knowing it was the only thing he could look at without leading to him blushing profusely and having his mouth hanging open like a slack jawed, daft idiot. That's what Claire did to him sometimes and he was still lost as to what specifically it was about her that caused it every time. "I take it that yours isn't family-related?"

Claire shook her head, her hands playing with each other in her lap as she leaned forward a little, her back arching to Charlie's gentle touch. For some reason he knew exactly where her back was killing her and made it feel better with a few ministrations. "His name was Thomas."

"Sounds like a name of a git if you ask me," Charlie muttered under his breath.

"Always have to fall for the ones that aren't right for me," Claire laughed quietly, trying to not disturb everyone else who was sleeping. "Not that I have any idea what is right for me. Far from it."

Arching her neck so she looked at Charlie, Claire started to open her mouth to ask him what he was dreaming about, to take the spotlight off of her and focus on what was so disturbing in his dream.

It wasn't even just the simple curiosity that was her main reason for wanting to know. Hearing him, a crack in his voice, say the name so sadly, desperately, almost crying it out as his hands clawed through the dirty…she felt like she owed it to Charlie to help him through an obviously difficult time. He'd been so nice to her since they had met, so it was the least she could do.

But Charlie was too focused on the leaf on the ground and Thomas. She shouldn't have mentioned his name. "So what happened? Did he jump ship when he found out about you being pregnant?"

"I think if he reacted that way it would have saved me a lot of trouble," Claire reluctantly explained, trying to keep any images of Thomas from appearing in her mind. She'd give anything to not talk about him, but Charlie needed someone to talk to and if it was about her and her dysfunctional life, then so be it. "He freaked out a few months too late."

"Whaddya mean?"

"I don't want to bore you…"

"You're not," Charlie answered back quickly and honestly. "You won't."

Claire caught his gaze and it was earnest. She couldn't deny a look like the one he was giving her. "He told me we could make it work. It'd be hard but we'd scrape by with the money I was making as a waitress and the money he naively thought he could make with his, now that I think of it, finger-paintings that looked to be made by a hugely-untalented six-year old."

She tried to not let it get personal, to not let the memories coming back affect her. But the resentment in her voice was irrefutable.

"Didn't work," Claire continued with a long sigh, bringing a hand to her face and rubbing the bridge of her nose. Taking a moment and closing her eyes, she tried to collect herself as she started to choke up. A few minutes of silence followed until finally she looked to Charlie pleadingly. "Can we talk about something else?"

"Sure, sure…" Charlie continued to rub her back with his left hand as his right moved up her shoulder, squeezing it comfortingly. "Anything you want."

Claire looked at him for a second and he swore he could see something of a plan conjuring up in her mind. The corners of her mouth curling up into a sly grin as her magnificent blue eyes sparkled mischievously; she grabbed Charlie's hand. "Come with me."

Instead of jumping to her feet and dragging him through the forest, running as fast as she could, Claire attempted to push herself onto her feet and failed, miserably. Leaning into the rock, groaning as she became lightheaded, her grip on Charlie tightened as she tried to not let herself become too overwhelmed.

Just as Charlie opened his mouth to ask if she was all right, she cut him off with a hasty: "I'm fine. Could use a push."

"How 'bout a pull?" Charlie suggested, the image of Claire being pushed and losing her balance, falling face-forward into the dirt something he didn't want to become a reality.

Getting to his feet, never letting go of Claire's hand, he tugged at her a little. When she tugged back, teasing him, daring him, he tugged harder, not too rough yet enough to get her to her feet; she flew into his body, laughing as quiet as she could the entire time.

"That was fun," she said into his shoulder. "We should do that more often. A daily ritual."

"Daily ritual, huh?" Charlie grinned, his ears enthusiastically rising along with his mouth. The look made Claire grin at him even more and he blushed. "Sounds good to me."

Before too long she was wearing her flip-flops and held one of the last flashlights that was still working and led the way along one of the less traveled paths. All of them led to the beach except for the one at the back of the camp, so Charlie didn't quite understand why she chose the less tread one, the path that would take the longest to get to the beach.

She noticed his hesitancy and glanced back at him, the enthusiasm in her eyes never once dimming. "You scared?"

"No, not scared at all. Confused, not scared." Charlie didn't put too much of a fight when she tugged harder at him to follow her. Actually, he moved closer, his chest pressed up against her back protectively. The closer he was, the easier it would be for him to keep her from getting hurt. "Don't know if you've walked these paths but-"

"This one's the longest, which makes it the best."

"How does being the longest path going through the dark scary forest make it the best?" Charlie yelped, his voice raising an octave or two.

Claire shook her head and rolled her eyes, even with her back to Charlie. "Didn't you ever have a place where you'd love to run through and explore when you were little? Like a small forest or your backyard?"

"Never had a backyard, but there was this wooded area-"

"So tell me, did you absolutely love going every which way to learn the paths by heart?"

"Sure."

"And whenever you'd be going home, wouldn't you take the longest way?"

Charlie's brow furrowed in slight confusion. "But we're not going home."

"We're going to the beach where we can see all the stars. But that's only half the fun, Charlie."

She said his name in a way that made him want to ask her to say it again and again and again. Or do things to her where that's all she'd want to say.

Shaking the odd, yet intriguing, thought out of his head, Charlie decided to just go along with whatever Claire had planned.

About two or three minutes later after trudging along the path in complete silence, Claire stopped suddenly, turning off her flashlight and shooting her finger to Charlie's lips when she noticed him opening his mouth to say something. Nodding upwards, her eyes shone beautifully in the darkness.

In everything around him, Charlie found her eyes the only thing he wanted to look at. But when she nudged him a little harder by pinching his arm, he reluctantly looked up. They were in the middle of a circle pattern of trees where, when they looked up, all the branches stretching out protected them from the rain even if the trees were several dozen feet away. But through the flimsy and thin layer of branches, he could see the full moon looming above them, a magnificent sight he was glad he had the chance to see.

"I told you this was the best part," Claire whispered to him. "I try and see the moon every night, what with being at the caves and all. Sometimes I don't try at all just to make it even better when I see it after a week. It's beautiful isn't it?"

Charlie nodded absently, still enraptured by the sight. The light was cut off in several places, yet he never felt so illuminated, as if in the spotlight. "It's so…quiet. Serene. It's…"

"Beautiful."

When he heard Claire's soft voice finish his sentence, he finally broke his stare and looked back into the only other thing on the entire island that was so beautiful he could stare at it for god knows how long.

While the night started with a nightmare. It certainly ended with a dream.


End file.
